I ask for cookbooks for birthdays and holidays, since purchasing them independently sometimes triggers an impulse that’s difficult to stop once begun. This year, my husband gave me the gift of Gran Cocina Latina by Maricel Presilla to commemorate our travels together in Nicaraguan and Peru. I’ll continue to reach for this volume not only for its comprehensive recipes and information on Latina culture, but because it has changed the way I use cookbooks.

Each of Gran Concina Latina’s 902 pages demand to be read. Although there are lovely photographs, it is not a coffee table book that allowed me to absorb all content visually. It rewards that investment by granting me entree into a new culinary paradigm, rather than rote recipes. I am satiated each time I settle in with these well written chapters, at once authoritative and tender.